Lars Gunnar Lars Gunnar Bodin

Following on from Callirhoé (André Cardinal Destouches), Sémélé (Marin Marais) and Proserpine (Jean-Baptiste Lully), three important tragédies lyriques rescued from oblivion by Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel, Glossa is now restoring to the catalogue and within its collection of French Baroque opera, a recording made in Metz in December 2001: Daphnis et Chloé, the work which was to add Joseph Bodin de Boismortier to the roll call of the history of music in a most determined fashion.

The baroque ensemble I Fiori Musicali has chosen Urania Records for their newest production, a collection dedicated to Boismortier. The name of this composer comes after the decline of the great explosion of French artists of the golden age of Louis XIV. He is not comparable to Lully, Couperin or Rameau, but he expresses a whole part of the early French Englightenment and he fights against the school by Rousseau. This album brings available some of the lesser-known but more refined works of the French composer. The ensemble plays on period instruments and follows the proper timeline of Boismortier's compositions.

Amazing sounds from the Swedish scene of the 60s - a record that's archly modern, yet soaringly soulful too - a really wonderful combination of modes in the hands of pianist Berndt Egerbladh! The title's a bit strange - as Berndt's hardly the kind of guy that would make us laugh, and he definitely has our ears right away from the very first notes on the record - a brilliant blend of his own piano, plus alto from Lars Goran Ulander, bass from Lars Gunnar Gunnarsson, and drums from Sten Oberg! The alto is especially nice - very sharp-edged and soulful on the tracks in which it figures - and helping to give the record and even deeper feel than some of Egerbladh's other albums - even though we like those a lot too. Tracks are all originals - beautiful compositions that make the album sparkle with a freshness you'll appreciate instantly.

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier was perhaps the very first free-lance composer in history. Being born in Thionville in Lorraine as the son of a confectioner, he went to Perpignan in 1713 and established himself there as a collector for the Royal Tobacco Excise Office, a position he held the next ten years. He must have received some musical training, though, since in 1721 a drinking song by a 'M. Boismortier de Metz' was published. His musical activities increased and he went to Paris, where he received his first permission to publish music in 1724. He published duos for transverse flute and cantatas, which was the start of a career as France's most prolific composer in the 18th century, whose oeuvre consists of more than 100 opus numbers with instrumental music, and in addition to that cantatas, motets and some stage works. He also was active as a theorist, writing treatises on the transverse flute and the 'pardessus de viole'.

Joseph Boismortier was a French Baroque composer who had to live by his wits, having no patrons or prestigious positions. The notes for this CD quote Jean-Benjamin’s assessment in 1780: “Happy is he, Boismortier, whose fertile quill each month, without pain, conceives new airs at will.” Boismortier, for lack of a better answer to his critics, would always answer: “I am earning money.” His four Ballets de Village are rustic suites that make extensive use of the musette and hurdy-gurdy, instruments considered country cousins, not to be used in “serious” music. Boismortier writes for them with great skill; the droning din they set up is most appealing.

Bror Gunnar's brand new release is what one could call True Crime Music. Many of the songs are based on known criminal investigations and most of them from Sweden. One case in particular was indeed literary close to home. With a knife killer breaking into people's home on the same street where Bror Gunnar lives. The title song is based on the gruesome murder of Catrine da Costa in 1984. Where the Police found the remains of a woman in a couple of garbage bags ditched by the side of a road in the outskirts of Stockholm. All body parts were found except for the head, and the perpetrator was never found.